Fatigue in children and adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease

Table 2 Methodology and quality assessment

First author (year of publication) and study type	Patient selection	Disease activity score	Fatigue score	Study quality
Marcus et al (2009)[6] Case-control study	Patients: recruited during scheduled clinical appointments at University Hospital, United States; Healthy controls: adolescent children of hospital employees	CD: PCDAI; CU and IBDU: PGA	PedsQL Multidimensional Fatigue Scale, IMPACT-III, PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scales Children’s Depression Inventory: Short Form	Good: no sample size justification
Nicholas et al (2007)[13] Cross-sectional study	Patients: recruited from the database of Reference Children’s Hospital, Canada	No distinction made	Semi structured interview designed by author	Poor: Patients purposively selected, questionnaires not validated, participation rate not reported
Pirinen et al (2010)[16] Case-control study	Patients: recruited from the database of the Population Register Center, Finland; Healthy controls: matched	VAS disease severity	Youth self-reported questionnaire, Sleep Self Report, child behavior checklist	Medium: Subjective score to assess disease severity, exact sleep duration unknown
Werkstetter et al (2012)[8] Case-control study	Patients: recruited from University Hospital, Germany; Healthy controls: matched	CD: PCDAI; UC: PUCAI	SenseWear Pro2 accelerometer, German KINDL, IMPACT III	Good: no sample size justification
Rogler et al (2013)[7] Cross-sectional study	Patients: recruited from Swiss IBD cohort study, Switzerland	CD: PCDAI; UC: PUCAI	KIDSCREEN-27	Medium: numbers in text and table do not match
Loonen et al (2002)[12] Cross-sectional study	Patients: recruited from a database of two large tertiary referral centers, Netherlands	5-item symptom card (completed by patients)	TACQOL, IMPACT-II	Good: validated questionnaires, the results compared with healthy controls
Tojek et al (2002)[14] Cross-sectional study	Patients: recruited from routine outpatient visit in 2 urban pediatric gastroenterology hospitals, United States	No distinction made	Questions designed by author	Medium: parental factors can influence adolescent’s health, the converse remains possible, only mothers investigated, questionnaires not validated
Ondersma et al (1996)[15] Cross-sectional study	Patients: recruited from 2 pediatric gastroenterology hospitals, United States	No distinction made	10-item Subjective Illness Questionnaire (parts or RCMAS and CDI)	Medium: no sample size justification, parts of validated questionnaires

CDI: Children’s Depression Inventory; CD: Crohn’s disease; IBD: Inflammatory bowel disease; PCDAI: Pediatric Crohn’s Disease Activity Index; PedsQL: Pediatric Quality of Life; PGA: Physician Global Assessment; PUCAI: Pediatric Ulcerative Colitis Activity Index; RCMAS: Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale; UC: ulcerative colitis.